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HOUR THIRTEEN

This is the hour where you
cannot keep from thinking about how long it is until the working day is
over. I find myself trying hard not to think about it, but regardless how
hard I try, I cannot keep those thoughts out of my mind. Thus, within this
hour time slows down. The same question enters my mental being every day
around this time; "will this damn day never end?"

The conditions, we working people, find ourselves in today are the direct
result of a number of factors:

The ability of the employers
to manipulate social and economic conditions in their favor.

The weakness of the business
unions (like the AFL-CIO) to effect conditions in favor of working people.

The feeling of helplessness
among working people in relation to being able to have any impact on social
and economic conditions.

The employers are stronger than
ever, because they have organized in their class interest. Their industrial
lobbyists are able to get nearly anything they want out of the politicians.
The international organization of regional trading blocks, allows the employers
to control social and economic conditions and the governments within those
regions. All the so-called "free trade agreements" which benefit the employers
at the expense of working people and the environment are but one good example
of the growing power of the employing class. These things are coming about,
not because of any natural law that governs human activity, but rather
from the organization of class interests.

The business unions are unable to counter the class based organization
of the employers, because they have all but lost their original purpose.
The purpose of labor unions was to organize the interests of working people.
But in the process they became infested with a professional class of union
officials, who had their own interests. These union bosses viewed their
self-interests as different than the rank and file union members. Their
interests lie in gaining, holding onto and consolidating personal power
and wealth. In fact they have more in common with the employing class than
they do with the working class. Because of the void left in the organized
interests of working people, the government, in doing the bidding of the
employers, was able to pass many anti-labor laws that strengthened the
power of the employers over the workers. These anti-labor laws stripped
organized labor of their most effective weapons. In toady's industrial
world these business unions are, at best, only able to have minor effects
on wages and conditions. These unions lose more strikes than they win.
One of the direct results of this weakness and corruption is the steady
loss of the eight hour day.

One may ask; if the employers have so much power today, then why do they
not have an all out assault on the past labor gains? The answer to this
is the same reason why the business unions must produce some form of direct
gains. The answer is fear. Working people possess far greater power than
all the employers, governments and union bosses put together. And that
power is the power of production. And these other classes of people know
that if working people are pushed too far that they may use their power.

There is one organization that did, and still does, seek to organize the
interests of working people into a powerful organization, without a professional
class of union bosses. That organization is the Industrial Workers of the
World (I.W.W.). Though the labor fakers and so-called labor historians
would have you believe that the IWW was just a labor rebellion years ago
that became out-dated, the fact is the IWW is still here today organizing
working people.

The ideas of the IWW of international industrial unionism is even more
relevant than they were years ago. While the employers have organized their
self-interests internationally, the idea of the IWW is that working people
should do the same. The IWW seeks to organize working people into the most
effective possible industrial organization. This industrial organization
would use the power of production through the solidarity of working people
in the direct interests of all working people wherever they maybe. Among
the demands that the IWW has always made is the
reduction of hours worked without the reduction of pay.

There is no hope in resisting forced overtime work and the dreadful effects
that it has, if, we working people are unwilling to act directly ourselves.
The eight hour day was not given to us in the past out of the kindness
of the bosses' hearts! We won it through our struggles and we must struggle
again to regain it. We cannot sit around hoping that the other worker will
do that which we all must do. True social and economic movements are built
one person at a time. And that means you, dear reader.

HOUR FOURTEEN

This hour is like the hour
right before lunch. The time goes slowly by as the countdown begins to
the end of the working day. One hour to go, 45 minutes to go, 30 minutes
to go, 15 minutes to go, 5 minutes to go, 1 minute to go, then the loud
shrill of the quitting time horn is heard. Then the walking dead come back
to life. Off we each go to our little homes to shower, eat and sleep. Only
to be awaked the next morning to begin another long working day of the
overtime slave.

Where is it written in the laws of creation that commands us to work as
we do? Does it really make sense that but a few parasites control industrial
production and the conditions of that production? It is but a piece of
paper that allows a few to own most everything while the many suffer and
do without. It is we who grant those special rights to a few to live by
owning and having to do no useful work. All that they have we have given
them. All that we do not have we have let slip away.

So, what ever happened to the eight hour day? We surrendered it. But the
employers need not have the last word on this issue. We can talk to our
sisters and fellow workers on and off the job. We can educate and organize
and rebuild the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World. We have
that power if will are only willing to use it. And with that power we can
recreate the eight hour day movement and finish the work started so long
ago. And never again surrendering our demand, "eight hours for work, eight
hours to rest, eight for what we will." And when working people have once
again won the eight hour day we can then begin to demand the six hour day.